The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, MB 26, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Chem Soc Rev. 2015 Jan 21;44(2):490-9. doi: 10.1039/c4cs00065j.
Template effects are an inevitable feature of supramolecular chemistry and were prominent in the discovery of crown ethers, carcerands and catenanes. Templates can act as guests or hosts, but in either role they must be structurally persistent - rigid or "hard" - on the timescale needed to form the final complexes. This report explores a peculiar effect encountered with self-assembled container molecules: soft templates. In these cases neither the guest nor the host has an independent existence, but they do coexist as complexes. The host and guest are prevented from collapsing into more familiar, stable structures by the forces that hold the complex together. The complexes represent emergent phenomena and offer a look at structures otherwise unknown in free solution.
模板效应是超分子化学不可避免的特征，在冠醚、环芳烃和索烃的发现中表现得尤为突出。模板可以作为客体或主体，但无论哪种角色，它们都必须在形成最终配合物所需的时间尺度上保持结构上的持久性——刚性或“硬”。本报告探讨了自组装容器分子中遇到的一种特殊效应：软模板。在这些情况下，既没有独立存在的客体，也没有独立存在的主体，而是作为配合物共存。使配合物保持稳定的力阻止了主体和客体坍塌成更常见、更稳定的结构。这些配合物代表了新兴的现象，并提供了对在自由溶液中未知的结构的观察。
